Our business
Wates Residential is an urban regeneration specialist working in partnership with local authorities, housing associations and others to deliver new homes.
Across all tenures, from affordable housing to open market sale and build‑to‑rent, we help create places where people live and thrive for generations.
Homes are in our heritage
Wates was founded in 1897 by Edward Wates – a housebuilder from South London with a straightforward ambition: to build better homes and stronger communities.
By the years before the Second World War, the business was delivering around two thousand homes a year. Over the decades that followed, Wates played a leading role in national housebuilding programmes and delivered some of the most significant public and private infrastructure in the country.
Who we are today
Today, Wates Residential is the Wates Group’s dedicated residential development and contracting business.
We operate across London, the South of England and Wales, partnering with local authorities, housing associations, public sector bodies and others to transform estates and shape new neighbourhoods on brownfield sites.
Over 125 years of continuous family ownership has given us something rare in this industry – the freedom to take a genuinely long term view. We are not driven by share price or quarterly returns. That perspective shapes how we work with partners, how we invest, and how we honour our commitments through thick and thin.
Our approach
We work with partners through three core structures: joint ventures, development agreements and contracting. What doesn’t change is our approach.
We invest. We bring our own development, design, sales and construction expertise. And we remain accountable from start to finish.
We focus on doing the basics brilliantly, and doing them consistently.
By working in close partnership with our supply chain, we deliver high‑quality homes time and again, and we ensure a culture of safety, health and wellbeing embedded into how we operate.
Quality and sustainability shape every decision we make – from early planning through to completion – and is central to how we design, develop and build.
Our structure
One of five divisions within the Wates Group, Wates Residential is a fully integrated business.
We operate through three regional businesses – London, the South of England and Wales – each led by experienced regional leadership teams with deep local knowledge and strong relationships with councils, housing associations and communities.
Our regional teams are supported by central commercial, finance, HR, sustainability and social value functions, ensuring consistent standards, strong governance and delivery confidence across all our work.
Our regions
London
We understand London’s complexity – from planning and phasing to funding, tenure mix and community engagement – and work closely with partners to turn ambition into reality.
South
We work closely with councils and public sector partners across the South to deliver homes in a wide range of settings – from city centre and estate regeneration projects to large scale town centre extensions.
Wales
Our work in Wales reflects a deep understanding of the Welsh policy and delivery landscape, including the priorities set by Welsh Government and local authorities around affordable housing, placemaking and sustainability.
Corporate Governance
Wates Residential Limited is one of the UK’s leading building services businesses and is a member of the Wates Group.
Wates Residential is committed to upholding the highest standards of conduct and ethics among our business, our employees and our supply chain and we take our corporate governance responsibilities very seriously.
Governance helps us to conduct our business responsibly, with openness and integrity, and in accordance with all of the laws and regulations to which our business activities are subject.